Black Friday shopping has long been a tradition for Aquillia Mikel, but this year the 25-year-old Chicago teacher gave a different meaning to the term.

As activists called for shopping boycotts in the name of the Black Lives Matter movement, Mikel gathered about a dozen vendors Friday night at Gallery Guichard in Bronzeville for a "Black Friday shopping alternative" that encouraged shoppers to buy from black-owned businesses.

The soiree, called "Cash In," was the first event led by her year-old organization Rebrand Chicago, which "promotes the beauty of buying black" to direct people's dollars back to their communities.

Mikel, who teaches freshman reading at Muchin College Prep charter school in the Loop, had long been a steadfast Black Friday shopper, poring over retail ads with her family after Thanksgiving dinner and waking before dawn to hit the stores with a careful divide-and-conquer strategy. Their tradition was to finish all of their holiday shopping before heading to breakfast at a waffle restaurant.

Mikel, who is black, abandoned the tradition for the first time last year as activists called for an economic boycott in the wake of the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of police.

"Any verdict that comes out, any video, if you feel powerless, the way to fight back is through where you spend your money," Mikel said.

As a DJ played songs and wine was poured at a bar, small business owners worked tables selling jewelry, body creams, clothing and accessories, much of it handmade. Mikel said about 115 people registered for the event, tickets for which cost $30, though as it got underway only a few guests had trickled in.

Dominique Covington, who makes her own natural body care products for her 5-year-old company Skin Deep, said the event was a good opportunity to network with other small business owners as well as make sales. Covington's offerings included body butters in scents such as coco-mango and lemon-ginger ($20 for an 8-ounce tub).

While she wasn't sure how much the event would affect her bottom line, Covington said "it's important to get people in the mindset of 'buy black' for the holiday season."

"People are becoming conscious of where they are spending their money right now," she said. "The energy is really good right now."

Tiara Monique Verse, a fashion designer who handmakes clothing and accessories for her company Love Verse (clutches range from $50 to $100), said the event encourages people to support small businesses that can't survive without investment from their neighbors.

Iva Elliott, owner of Girl Goodies, which offers personal shopping services and sells vintage clothing and accessories ($65 for an '80s-era Christan Dior trench coat), said it can be difficult when even family and friends insist on a discount.

"If we don't support one another, we are going to be left behind," Elliott said.

Tambra Pendleton, a teacher who works with Mikel, wanted to show her support.

"Oftentimes we go into big stores, and it's not so much giving back to the black community," said Pendleton, who normally participates in the Black Friday shopping deals but has refrained from doing so the past two years. "So something like this event, even though it's really small, it makes an impact to the black community and invests in those businesses so they can grow."

Mikel said one of her motivations was to counteract what she says is a stigma that the quality of products from black-owned businesses is inferior to that of more familiar stores.

Friends and college students Karen Spears and Gabriella Santoyo were excited to buy coffee body scrubs from Scrubfusions (on special for $8 at the event), handmade by owner Ashley Askew-Bell with natural ingredients. They compared them to what they could find at natural body care retailer Lush.

"I told (Askew-Bell) I'm going to go to you from now on so I don't have to break my pocket to buy some products," Spears said.